What is BitBounce?

BitBounce is a unique solution to fighting spam. Quite simply, if someone you don’t know wants to send you an email, they must pay you. The payment you receive is paid out in cryptocurrency, and users get to set the amount they are paid for each email.

The process is very simple. If someone already in your contacts list sends you an email, you will receive it as normal. If, however, the sender’s address isn’t on your contacts list, the email is quarantined, and an auto reply is sent to the sender.

The sender can either request to have their name added to your contact list, or they can opt to pay your price to send you an email.

Spam

We all receive a ton of unsolicited emails. While some of it may be of value, the majority is either annoying or is linked to some form of scam. Most of the annoying spam is sent by bulk spammers. They know that only a very small fraction of the all the email they send will result in a response, but that’s okay because they can literally send millions of emails for free.

Whether bulk spammers are trying to sell something, or lure people into a scam, their business model is dependent on their ability to send millions of email messages at no cost to themselves. If they had to pay just one cent to send each mail, their business model would no longer be viable.

BitBounce changes all that. For the first time, you get to charge the sender of an unsolicited email for your time. Most of the bulk email spammers won’t pay the price regardless of how low it is. However, if someone you don’t know genuinely wants to communicate with you, they should be prepared to pay your price.

Over 500,000 people are already using BitBounce to keep spam out of their inbox.

Access

There’s another side to unsolicited mail. In some cases, someone may have a proposal that they genuinely believe you may be interested in. If they are prepared to pay to send you an email, they are sending a signal to say they respect your time, but they also believe you will be interested in their message.

This makes it possible for people with a genuine proposal to reach people they would never otherwise be able to. If you send an email to someone influential like an HR manager at a large corporation, or a partner at a venture capital firm, chances are it will end up in their spam folder with thousands of similar messages.

But, if you are prepared to pay their price, whether it’s $10 or $100, you are sending a signal to say that you are prepared to pay them for their time.

Credo and CredoEx

Credo is the cryptocurrency that fuels the BitBounce platform, and the currency that users are paid in. If you don’t already own cryptocurrencies, you can use your BitBounce account as a starting point and begin building a portfolio.

Or, if you prefer, you can sell your Credo tokens on one of several exchanges around the world, or on CredoEx, Credo’s inhouse exchange.

On CredoEx you can also buy and sell other tokens including Kyber, Gnosis, Aragon, OmiseGo, Augur, Civic and Bancor.

For Business

BitBounce also allows businesses to send emails to potential customers, for a fee. Rather than spending money on paid advertising campaigns, businesses can communicate directly with individuals, and pay those individuals for their attention.

Companies can also use an AutoPilot feature to automatically pay for emails to go through the BitBounce paywall if the recipient’s BitBounce fee is below a preset threshold.

Getting Started

BitBounce works with all major email providers and clients, including Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo and others.

To sign up, simply go to the home page, enter your email address, and click on ‘Sign Up.’ You’ll receive an email to confirm your address, and you will need to choose a password.

Once you have a profile you can log in and go to the dashboard. From there you can sync your contacts to create a ‘whitelist’. Your whitelist is the list of contacts who can send you emails without encountering the paywall. If someone you know, who is not on your whitelist sends you an email, they can request to be added to your whitelist. Once you add their address to your whitelist, it will remain there until you remove it.

The next step is to decide on the price you will charge to receive an email. The recommended amount is $0.05 to start. If you find you still receive too much spam you can raise your price over time. It’s really up to you.

You will still have access to emails that get blocked. They won’t go into your inbox, but they will be available in a separate folder. So, if you are expecting an email from a contact who is not on your whitelist, you will know where to look for it.

Your BitBounce dashboard is where you interact with the platform. When you go to your dashboard, you can edit your whitelist, buy more Credo tokens and view your Credo wallet balance. You can also see a chart of the number of emails that have been bounced each day, and the number of emails bounced today and during the previous month.

There is no charge to sign up to BitBounce. The platform does charge a 30 percent fee on payments you receive, but you don’t ever need to pay to use the service.

Summary

As BitBounce grows, and more users sign up, the relationship between email senders and receivers will change too. Being paid to receive email may seem novel now, but in time it will become standard practice.

Not only will outright spam be reduced, but it will be possible for individuals to reach people they would never have reached before. By paying a fee and respecting the fact that someone’s time has value, we will have access to the right people when it really counts.